The Look of Love (24 page)

‘You know, empty house as in
nobody home
? Giles? Are you still there?’

‘Yup. Am here. I just, I like can’t come tonight. Got stuff on. Late with coursework. Sorry babe. Another time, yeah?’

‘Are you blowing me out here, Giles? Totally, as in for good? Because that’s what it sounds like to me.’ Molly chewed her thumbnail, dreading the answer ‘Yes’.

‘No! Not at all! Still love you Molly.’ He was muttering it, as if someone were close by and listening. Perhaps they were. Probably it was Giles’s mother, who was one of those energetic gym mums who whizzed around the house and seemed to be everywhere, always smiling and big-eyed and pleased to see everyone and wanting Molly to talk hair and clothes with her because, she complained, she was outnumbered by men in the house and in need of girly chat. Nice and friendly as she was, no wonder Giles preferred to see Molly when he was safely off the premises. The last time they’d been
in his room (just watching
Doctor Who
, luckily), his mother had bounced in clutching a copy of
Marie Claire
to ask for an opinion on a cropped studded-leather jacket. Did Molly think she was too old to wear it? Yes was the clear answer, but ‘No’ had to be said, yet in a tactful, ‘deep down I really mean yes’ way.

Molly had come to the end of her patience. To her it was a clear case of ‘Still love you, BUT …’ Too cowardly to face her and come right out with the truth, was he? Her heart was thumping painfully and she felt choking tears on their way. Something had changed since he’d rolled her on the grass under the trees on the school field, and she had no idea what. And it looked like she wasn’t going to find out in a hurry, as there was nothing coming down the phone but faint and distant breathing. Not very even breathing come to that, though not uneven in a
good
way.

‘Yeah right. OK. You love me. Like you’re giving me reason to believe it. Let me know when you’re ready for a conversation. Bye.’

She clicked her phone shut and went into the kitchen. There was no Mum to hang out with – she’d got a date. No Gran – so had she. Everyone was out having man-friend fun and she was left at home with Keith the cat, who was asleep, shedding fur all over the ridiculous purple velvet sofa. Fliss would be cross in the morning; it would be her job to brush it all off.

She had a look in the fridge, took out the remains of last night’s shepherd’s pie and shoved it into the microwave. When the
ping
went she looked at it, felt slightly ill and left it on the worktop, unable to face eating it because all her insides were already filled up with a solid lump of sheer misery. She went and lay on the sofa alongside the cat, looking out to the tall tobacco flowers in the garden, almost luminous white in the deepening dusk. Carly – she’d talk to Carly. She might come up with what was wrong with Giles. And even if she couldn’t, she’d do her best to cheer her up. That’s what best mates were for.

Mon Plaisir, on the cusp of Soho and Covent Garden, was a restaurant that Bella had been to before, though that time it had been a bit of a rush as she’d been there for an early pre-theatre supper with a bunch of women friends. She remembered it for the speedy service, friendly French staff and pretty, slightly quirky decor. She arrived early, but not by so much as to look embarrassingly eager, and as the cab dropped her off in the crowded narrow street, she could see Saul crossing the road to meet her.

‘Bella!’ he said, kissing her. ‘You’re looking gorgeous!’ So the simple fallback – yet non-black – choices were the best in the long run: a three-year-old silky ginger dress with tiny cream spots (Jigsaw), cinched in with a
chocolate obi-style belt (Toast), cream crêpey jacket (Handwritten).

‘Oh … thanks! So are you!’ Well, he was – why shouldn’t she say so? So simple for men: an unstructured blue-grey jacket plus white linen shirt equalled casually instant style. It was funny, it struck her now, that men wore such a limited range of items: basic shirts, jackets – they didn’t vary
that
much in design and yet some men had the knack of looking wonderfully comfortable and effortless, whereas others seemed always stiff and awkward and as if they’d been forced reluctantly into their outfits by bossy uniformed nannies. Saul was one of the former sorts, James, regrettably, one of the latter; when he wasn’t wearing a tie, he kept touching his neck as if worried that something vital was missing and that he was bordering on embarrassing exposure. Saul looked as if he didn’t actually possess a tie. She tried not to think of him owning a black one for funerals, one that was stashed away in a corner of a drawer since the day he’d buried his adored wife. Now wasn’t the time to be morbid.

They were given a corner table, at the L of the padded banquette seating. ‘Oh good,’ Bella said as they sat down. ‘I really don’t much like sitting opposite people, do you? It always seems a bit remote and formal, like a job interview. I much prefer this right-angle thing.’

‘Me too, and I also think the side-by-side thing is a bit
odd too,’ he agreed. ‘As if you’re on a bus. And if it’s with someone you don’t know well, there’s that leg-touching thing that you can’t avoid and you’re wondering if they think it’s deliberate. And maybe it is, but then you wonder the same about them … Oh, sorry, Bella, I’m waffling!’

‘You are a bit!’ she told him, amused that he too seemed a bit nervous. ‘But it’s OK. And I’m glad that so far we agree we’re happy with the seating arrangements.’

‘Yes. It’s an excellent start,’ he said, all pretend serious. ‘Always good to begin
without
a disagreement, I think.’

The waitress handed them menus and asked about drinks.

‘Champagne, yes?’ Saul suggested.

‘Mmm, thanks, that would be …’

‘Another plus on the non-disagreement side. I’ll stop counting now, I promise. So – do you have any colour restrictions on food today? Green only? Or are you going to be really tricky to feed and insist on blue?’ he teased.

‘Not green; it’s Thursday so … ooh let me see, it’s red – I’ll have to have red mullet and tomatoes. I can eat nothing else today.’ Bella scanned over the menu quickly. She was quite hungry, but the mildly anxious sort of hungry where she knew that if she were suddenly faced with a large plate of something, she’d only be able to eat a quarter of it before the butterflies inside her
crowded out her appetite. Ridiculous really, to feel all teenage like this. Saul was such a warm friendly sort, so easy to be with, she really should simply relax and enjoy herself. Instead, behind the butterflies, she had a feeling of mild dread, as if this evening really mattered and that if it all went wrong, nothing in her life would ever go right again.

The champagne arrived, Saul raised his glass and smiled at her. ‘Here’s to … er, what shall we drink to? You choose.’

‘I suppose it should be to the success of
Fashion Victims
,’ Bella said, clinking her glass against his.

‘And I suppose you’re right, because, being a woman, your lot always are … but … tonight’s
not
about the programme, don’t you think?’

‘OK, if
not
the programme, then …?’

‘To us? Or is that presumptuous?’

Bella hesitated, wondering quite what he meant. To presume he meant it in a start-of-a-romance kind of way would be … well …
presumptuous
. But the thought of it caused a surge of those inner butterflies. Unexpectedly big ones, almost hawkmoth size. At this rate, she was going to have to swallow a vat of insect repellent to keep them under control. To be safe, she took the humour route. ‘OK then, here’s to us still being on speaking terms this time tomorrow.’

‘Excellent – that’s a good one. But I can’t think why
we wouldn’t be. All is well at the moment,’ he looked at his watch, ‘a whole fifteen minutes in.’

‘Exactly – it’s looking good so far,’ she agreed, sipping her drink and feeling a sudden elated rush of the bliss of being out, single, free and in the company of a sweet, attractive, friendly man with whom she had no intention of getting involved.

‘Wow, that’s one hell of a smile!’ he commented. ‘What brought that on?’

‘Um … oh I don’t know! Just feeling happy to be here, right now, that for a few hours everything’s OK and home and the hectic stuff and all dull reality can be left behind?’

He was looking at her, saying nothing but smiling, happy with what he saw. She went on, nervously feeling she should fill the silence gap, ‘Now you think I’m nuts, don’t you? That I sound like some tragic escapee from suburbia who so rarely gets out that I’m going to behave as if I’m on … oh I don’t know … an overexcited
hen night
or something, and get ludicrously giddy.’

‘I don’t think that at all. I think you had a rare recognition of a truly happy moment.
Carpe diem
is all very well as a motto, but it only works if you realize the day has been seized. Usually we never notice till it’s whizzed past. And don’t put yourself down, Bella. I know about your non-suburban work life: you’re a successful journalist, a top-class writer and you have a job anyone
would envy. But I also know more about
you
than you’d think – remember I’ve turned a big part of your home upside down. Seen how you are in it, how your family co-exist. I know your tastes in paintings, colours, plants, what’s in your fridge, what’s on your bookshelves, some of the things that people usually don’t get to know till way down the line in a relationship.’

‘All a bit one-sided so far, isn’t it? Slightly unfair. I don’t know anything like that much about you. Only …’ She hesitated.

‘… only about how I work and about Lucy. I could have – probably should have – mentioned I’d also had another very brief marriage that didn’t last. It was never meant to.’

Bella thought about what her mother had said about those who’ve been happy rushing to repeat the experience. She didn’t want to probe into the mistake it had obviously turned out to be.

‘Oh, that’s … well, sad, I suppose.’

‘But Lucy was very much a “life-goes-on” woman,’ he continued. ‘And she made me promise not to go in for shrines and eternal grieving, and I haven’t. She’s a great memory, but a long-distant one now. Even so, however much you live in the present, when you lose someone like that, eventually they turn into – oh I don’t know – some weird information barrier that has to be got over when you meet someone new. Bit of an elephant-in-the-room
thing, really. That’s why I told you about her – because if I’d left it much longer and
then
said something, you’d think I was still completely hung up on the past.’

‘So you’ve been single for a while, then?’

Saul laughed. ‘Not devoutly so. I’m not a natural at the casual stuff, though. How about you? What’s the “after James” story?’

‘After James … well … OK, I’ll give you a brief history of my non-love life in one short paragraph,’ Bella began.

And it was during the grilled tuna with fennel (both had chosen the same) that Bella realized the old saying really was true after all: looking back now, recounting the Rick-in-New-York episode
did
make her laugh, and Saul too. It came under the heading of fun and self-deprecating anecdotes. She told Saul of her flight from the hotel (‘a bit overdramatic, now I come to think of it. I should have just stayed on and enjoyed the city on my own,’) and her venomous cursing of the innocent guest, after choosing the wrong bedroom door.

‘I was so furious and let down at the time, the last thing I ever expected was that it would become something to giggle about,’ she said.

‘Maybe it’s who you’re telling it to,’ he suggested.

‘OK then, or maybe it’s just the way I tell ’em.’

‘Pudding?’ he asked as the menus were handed out.

‘I couldn’t, honestly. This has been wonderful, but I really couldn’t eat another thing.’

‘Coffee, though? Either here, or we could go to the Bar Italia, or …’

‘Or?’ she asked, all mock-innocence.

‘Well I’ve seen yours, maybe you’d like to see mine. Er … place of residence, that is!’ he clarified, as Bella was overcome with a giggle attack.

‘OK – yours. I’d love to. I’ve seen the office, now show me your rooftop garden.’

Out on the pavement the street was buzzing with crowds let loose from theatres. Every cab had its light out. Saul took Bella’s hand and steered her through the throng at Cambridge Circus. ‘We could walk there, but …’ He looked at Bella’s shoes, which were strappy, high-ish sandals. ‘Those look like car-to-bar shoes only, not really for pavement use, am I wrong?’

‘A bit wrong – I’d never wear shoes I couldn’t run for a bus in, but it would have to be a not very fast-approaching bus. By Daisy’s standards, they are practically flats.’

‘By Daisy’s standards, everything short of completely perpendicular counts as flats. OK – this is what we’ll do, then,’ he said, raising an arm towards the traffic. A bicycle rickshaw, driven by a smiling boy, stopped beside them and Saul gave the address. ‘Hey, you two romantics,’ the boy said in what sounded like an
appropriately Italian accent, ‘you be warm under blanket and you can snog.’

Bella climbed in, slightly wary of how vulnerable the fragile vehicle would be to the surging buses, cars and taxis. Saul tucked the blanket across them both and put his arm around her. She snuggled close, glad of even this small gesture of protection from the brutal traffic surrounding them. ‘Have you ever been in one of these before?’ he asked.

‘No, never!’ she laughed. ‘I suppose I think of them as just for the tourists. But tonight I do feel a bit like a tourist myself, seeing this part of the city with you. It must be the unfamiliarity of being in this mad contraption that gives it a whole new angle.’

In truth, it was the excitement of being with Saul, she realized. It was that fragile elation of being with a man whom she was really, really beginning to like and who was quite possibly feeling the same about her. It made the city seem newly radiant; every Soho building looked like an architectural masterpiece, every overspilling ordinary bar seemed gilded and exotic. This was dangerous, heady stuff, she thought, as the enthusiastic and skilled rickshaw driver pedalled madly and wove in and out of the near-static traffic with terrifying verve.